ARM Joins the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation has reinforcements from the hardware camp. CPU manufacturer ARM joined the Foundation on Monday.

ARM has for a long time contributed code to the Linux kernel. With ARM processors sold in around ten billion devices, the British company brings a lot of know-how to the Foundation.

Once inside the organization, ARM will logically concern itself primarily with mobile devices, writes the Foundation in a press release, but the chip developer is also interested in desktop environments.

ARM processors have traditionally been built into millions of mobile phones, such as the iPhone and Nokia's Internet-Tablets, but with the new energy-saving SoC solution, ARM also wants a piece of the netbook market. This would indirectly give Linux a new chance at the small portable devices. The first ARM-based notebooks are expected at the end of this year.